About this blog

My name is Bill Hirt and I'm a candidate to be a Representative from the 48th district in the Washington State legislature. My candidacy stems from concern the legislature is not properly overseeing the WSDOT and Sound Transit East Link light rail program. I believe East Link will be a disaster for the entire eastside. ST will spend 5-6 billion on a transportation project that will increase, not decrease cross-lake congestion, violates federal environmental laws, devastates a beautiful part of residential Bellevue, creates havoc in Bellevue's central business district, and does absolutely nothing to alleviate congestion on 1-90 and 405. The only winners with East Link are the Associated Builders and Contractors of Western Washington and their labor unions.

This blog is an attempt to get more public awareness of these concerns. Many of the articles are from 3 years of failed efforts to persuade the Bellevue City Council, King County Council, east side legislators, media, and other organizations to stop this debacle. I have no illusions about being elected. My hope is voters from throughout the east side will read of my candidacy and visit this Web site. If they don't find them persuasive I know at least I tried.

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

East Link Will Bankrupt Central Link

The previous two posts detailed how
Sound Transit’s failure to consider two-way bus only lanes on the I-90 roadway
has led to an East Link light rail system that will be a transportation
debacle for the entire east side.This post explains why
the East Link decision will also exacerbate their second major blunder; the financial debacle from their failure to terminate Central Link at the University Station.

ST is currently in the initial
stages of boring the tunnel portion of their Central Link extension between the
University Station and Northgate.From
there, the track extension will run at street level to Lynnwood, a total of
12.8 miles from the University adding 25.6 miles to both the Central Link and
East Link routes. Both extensions are part of the Prop 1 package voters approved in 2008.

Current Central Link schedules
show 118 trains operate daily between SeaTac and downtown Seattle with nearly
all of the trains having 2 cars or 236 car trips. Presumably ST will adjust that schedule to match up with the
121 daily trains in their recent East Link operating plan.The East Link plan assumes 4-car trains
that will add 484 car trips daily to and from Lynnwood for a total of 720 cars
daily.

The Lynnwood extension nearly
doubles the route lengths for both the East Link and Central Link trains.Thus both routes will require
commensurate increases in the number of trains and light rail cars to maintain
desired frequencies.The
additional equipment costs for the East Link 4-car trains will be especially onerous since they will triple the number of cars required. For example15 trains will be required to maintain 8 minute intervals if it takes 2 hours to complete the East Link route from Overlake to Lynnwood and back. The 60 cars required will each cost in excess of $5 million for an additional $300 million in initial costs and $30 million yearly in depreciation (assuming 10-year life for cars).

The equipment cost East Link adds for the
Lynnwood extension pales in comparison to its long-term effect on operating
costs.Routing 720 car trips over
the 25.6 mile round trip results in 18,432 daily car miles for the two routes. ST 2014 budgets show each car mile costs
$22.48 (excluding depreciation).Thus the Lynnwood extension will add
more than $414,000 to ST daily operating costs.Assuming the
weekend car miles are half the weekday levels the Lynnwood extension would add
nearly $2.5 million every week to ST light rail operating costs.

It’s way past time for ST to recognize
East Link will be a major contributor to the Lynnwood cost problem. Aborting it would save more than $80 million a year by eliminating the daily
484 car trips that are totally superfluous to commuter needs. The fact it also eliminates the need for a large number of expensive light rail cars makes it even more imperative. Failure to do so will result in deficits that surely qualifiy as a financial debacle by anyone’s
standard.

About Me

My last elective position was class president for 25 “class of ’57” seniors in Armstrong, Iowa. I received an MS in engineering at ISU, worked at Boeing for 36 years before retiring in 1998. My wife and I moved into our current home in Bellevue in 1967 where we raised two daughters. Three years of unsuccessful attempts to persuade BCC to block EL are available on “extended session” meeting minutes. Copies of many were sent to all the media outlets, legislators, and others to no avail. I’m hoping this Web site will convince east side residents to query their own legislators.